Now the relation which, in the sphere of nature, being and semblance or sensation bear to one another in this antithesis, is the same as that which in ethics exists between good and pleasure or feeling.
Interpretation
The quote suggests a parallel between the relationship of reality and perception in nature and the relationship of morality and pleasure in ethics.
Friedrich Schleiermacher highlights a fundamental relationship in both the natural world and ethical considerations, drawing a comparison between the way being and appearance coexist in nature and how good and pleasure or feelings coexist in ethical contexts. This illustrates the complexities of how we perceive reality and morality, suggesting that both are subject to the interplay of objective existence and subjective experience.
In practice
In a debate about moral dilemmas, this quote can illustrate the complexity of ethical decision-making.
The first, that their pretensions to this possession of an art properly so called in their art of speaking are entirely unfounded; and the second, that they are involved in a profound mistake in their confusion of the good with the pleasant.
Whenever I find a spark of that hidden fire that will sooner or later consume the old and create the new, I am drawn to it with love and hope, regarding it as a sign of my future home.
Either the translator leaves the author in peace, as much as is possible, and moves the reader towards him: or he leaves the reader in peace, as much as possible, and moves the author towards him.
The essence of the religious emotions consists in the feeling of an absolute dependence.
The essence of religion consists in the feeling of an absolute dependence.
Belief must be something different from a mixture of opinions about God and the world, and of precepts for one life or for two. Piety cannot be an instinct craving for a mess of metaphysical and ethical crumbs.
Remember this: with mind you will always be a loser. Even if you are victorious, your victories will be just defeats. With mind there is no victory, with no-mind there is no defeat. You have to shift your whole consciousness from mind to no-mind. Once no-mind is there, everything is victorious. Once the no-mind is there, nothing goes wrong, nothing can go wrong.
Hardly a pure science, history is closer to animal husbandry than it is to mathematics in that it involves selective breeding. The principal difference between the husbandryman and the historian is that the former breeds sheep or cows or such and the latter breeds (assumed) facts. The husbandryman uses his skills to enrich the future, the historian uses his to enrich the past. Both are usually up to their ankles in bullshit.
A church that suffers no persecution but enjoys the privileges and support of the things of the earth - beware! - is not the true church of Jesus Christ. A preaching that does not point out sin is not the preaching of the gospel. A preaching that makes sinners feel good, so that they are secured in their sinful state, betrays the gospel's call.
Through Gandhi and my own life experience, I have learned about nonviolence. I believe that human life is a very special gift from God, and that no one has a right to take that away in any cause, however just. I am convinced that nonviolence is more powerful than violence.
Being a Christian has not and does not come naturally or easy for me. I take that to be a good thing because I am sure that to be a Christian requires training that lasts a lifetime.
It is necessary ... for a man to go away by himself ... to sit on a rock ... and ask, 'Who am I, where have I been, and where am I going?
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